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Retail Assist supports transfer to Ikano

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Rubicon Retail has revealed how its move to leading-edge store cards for its Warehouse and Principles brands has enhanced its customer experience

The systems projects to transfer to new, more functional cards which have taken place over recent months have been managed by Rubicon’s IT outsourcing partner Retail Assist. The project was a collaborative one, requiring Retail Assist to work with Rubicon and two of its partners: GCS, provider of the retailer’s Merret merchandising system, and IKANO, its new store card partner.

IKANO are now managing all elements of customer accounts, loyalty awards, tender types and sales transaction processing for the new cards.

The launch of the Warehouse store card has replaced and extended the services previously provided by the Creation Store Card. Its introduction has also paved the way for a new scheme, awarding points for spend which are then converted to loyalty vouchers. New development was required to support these loyalty vouchers as a payment method.

Principles store card processes were previously managed by GE Capital, and these customer accounts have now been migrated to IKANO. A further card also supplied by IKANO provides credit facilities, enabling it to be more widely accepted through Principles concessions that do not operate Rubicon till systems.

Comments Ishan Patel, I.S. Director at Rubicon Retail “The project required great flexibility from Retail Assist in rising to the challenge of managing scope changes whilst keeping to fixed project timelines for systems migration and new card launches. Their contribution to the success of the project was invaluable.”

As part of the new store cards’ operations, transaction-level information is provided to IKANO, enabling them to undertake marketing analysis on individual sales and the shopping habits of both Warehouse and Principles card holders.

Retail Assist was responsible for delivering a number of technical elements, including:

Modifying Warehouse and Principles store systems to replace the Creation and GE Capital cards and accommodate the new IKANO-based cards

Updating central and store-based online authorisation services to handle the new cards

Adds Iain Hamlett, IKANO project manager “The involvement of Retail Assist was crucial to the overall success of this project, managing a flexible scope through to a timely and quality delivery.”

Concludes Gary Broughton, Project Director at Retail Assist “It’s been a pleasure collaborating on this project and implementing the new functionality from IKANO. Looking forward, we will undoubtedly find ourselves putting this experience to good use for other clients wishing to transfer to IKANO store cards.”